gender and language

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Gender and Language
Within the general human culture, there are lingering presuppositions on how men and woman are supposed to behave. A large part of presumptions is based on how people speak differently, perhaps along the gender lines. The claim that women and men have differences in language use is a usual point of debate and has appeared, debated, discussed from glamor magazines and newspapers, and books to academic journals in language, psychology, education, and anthropology. The idea that women and men speak and listen differently is largely non-contentious, with platitudes such as ‘men never listen,’ and ‘it is easy to talk to a woman’ commonly referenced in every non-academic literature from glamor magazines, to newspaper and even in greeting cards.
The claim that women and men speak a differently has become a canon, not treated as a hypothesis to be analyzed; rather it has become an unquestioned article of faith. The faith in the argument might be misplaced. Personally, it would be important to follow the evidence where it leads, but in the proposition of gender and language differences, the evidence does not lead to where it is common though it would go. Men and Female ‘speak a different language’ which leads to miscommunication and misunderstanding. Dropping the myths and stereotypes of the supposed differences in language use between men and women can help in making gains where the society has dug trenches on this belief.

The claim on language differences between men and women at the basic level is often known as the Mars-Venus belief. This belief can be constructed in the following ways. It proposes that men and women are deeply different in a manner they use language in communication. Every aspect of the belief shares some basic argument. Additionally, they make certain claims such as language and communication are more important to women compared to men, and that women are talkative compared to men. Second, women possess more verbal skills compared to men. Third, the objective of men in using the language is purposive to get things to be done; on the other hand, women use the language to build relationships. Men focus more on facts and certainly actionable things, while women emphasize their speeches on people, emotions and relationships (Pfeiffer 360). Fourth, men’s way of using the language is competitive a reflection of their interests in acquiring and maintaining their statuses, while women’s use of language is that of subordination and collaboration, and which is a reflection of their preferences for harmony and equality. Finally, the differences regularly lead to miscommunication between people from the two genders, with one misinterpreting the other party’s intentions. This then leads to difficulties in contexts where the people of the two genders interact regularly, such as at home where a husband and a wife live.
The claim that women and men differ deeply in the manner whey use a language during communication might be a fable on the face of it, where the opponents insist that it is a widespread and false notion. It might also be a bigger lie in the sense of a tale one relies on explaining their identities. Discerning historical or scientific sense in the fables have a direct consequence to the real world, as they shape human belief and influence human actions. For instance, the workplace is an area where myths over a language and the two genders might have negative effects. For instance, the discrimination of one gender over the other for the position of a customer care representative.
Given that Tannen (366) constructed her arguments on the idea that women are better listeners to conversations initiated by men, however, boring they might be, can persuade an employer to seek only the services of women to a customer care representative job to the exclusion of the other candidates because of their genders. There is a new trend by companies to create call centers to address customer needs on their products or service. These call center jobs are sensitive as the employees are direct contact with a company’s customers, and ordinarily need people with effective communication and language skills. However, there are employers who share in the belief created through historical and perhaps scientific evidence that women are inherently more qualified for these jobs.
Unlike female job candidates who the employers assume to have the skills naturally, the onuses have been placed on male job candidates to prove that they possess the requisite skills. When the global economy is gradually moving from industry to service, the assumptions paint a gloomy picture for men. The most critical variable in the arrangement might not be the gender of the individual doing the talking, rather the listener. In general, both men and women often interrupt and employing dependent clauses when talking with a woman compared to a man (Epstein 42). In normal conversations with friends of the same gender and those of the opposite gender, it might be impossible to discern any differences in the way men or women speak. However, a practical and personal experiment might reveal that a conversation with of the two genders separately, might produce different results.
Conversations between men and women are comparable to those of others in the society; for instance, relationships between parents and their children, or between a patient and a physician. Often, the style of men is akin to a powerful person in the relationship. When one is speaking with a female, interruptions might be more, and she might use more dependent clauses when compared to the male. Moreover, the personal experiment revealed that a woman never interrupts a man when listening. This is consistent with the observations of Tannen (365), who had prodded a female publicist, whom she noticed had taken her time listening to a gentleman relaying a long tale of how a studio came to be built in that place, plus some other details, which the author might have considered to be unnecessary.
The publicist later confided in the Tannen (365) claiming that she was not actually listening to the details the gentleman was relaying to her. There is a general belief, perhaps gathered from research, that the differences in language between men and women are laid bare through the grammatical structures employed by men and women. Traditionally it was believed that women and more polite compared to men, and employ few vulgar terms. That women talk more than men is a common stereotype that has been debunked by research. Research on gender talkativeness has revealed that men talk more compared to women in structured contexts, such as in boardroom meeting, faculty meetings and that men who talk more still do less than women.
Within the realms of public speaking, men compared to women, seem to be at since, because it is an arena they have battled since the beginning of time. Men see language and its consequences as the opportunity for public speaking as means of bargaining for the status and maintaining their independence. In contrast, women excel during private and unstructured meetings. For them, the language of conversation is one that helps in building the rapport, a means of creating the connections. This could be the pointer to the common clichés of a silent man at home and a talkative woman (Tannen 388). This is the fundamental situation where women cry out that men do not talk enough.
Women perceive of conversation as opportunities to lay out their problems, share experiences, and provide reassurances and support. On the other hand, men do not consider personal problems to be the regular part of a conversation. While the myths on gender differences in languages have been researched and analyzed from different angles, the claims seem exaggerated. Human beings develop their language and communication competence from an early age. From childhood, girls and boys learn to socialize in completely different ways, from that age, they learn what is fitting to one gender, and which is not for the other. Often, girls normally play in small bands or just a pair, and their entire life might be centered around the idea of a best friend.
Moreover, their game is not as competitive compared to those of boys, while their main goal is establishing a connection. While girls spend their time talking, boys spend their playing games that are competitive, with their aim being to prove that one is better than the other. In their games winner and losers are identified, in their group’s hierarchical structures are developed, and status negotiated by either winning a game or losing the game. Then it can be predictable that expectations of the two genders are markedly different from an early age.

Works Cited
Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs. “Symbolic segregation: Similarities and differences in the language and non-verbal communication of women and men.” Sociological forum. Vol. 1. No. 1. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1986.
Tannen, Deborah. “‘Il Explain It To You’ Lecturing and Listening.” Language Readings in Language and Culture, Edited by Virginia Clark et al., 6th ed., St.Martin’s Press, New York, 1998, pp. 365–378.
Tannen, Deborah. “Ethnic Style in Male-Female Conversation. ”Language Readings in Language and Culture, Edited by Virginia Clark et al., 6th ed., St.Martin’s Press, New York, 1998, pp. 379-391.
Pfeiffer, John. “Girl Talk-Boy Talk.”Language Readings in Language and Culture, Edited by Virginia Clark et al., 6th ed., St.Martin’s Press, New York, 1998, pp. 357-364.